


Raising Anna

by Howland



Category: BioShock Infinite
Genre: Christmas, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Kid Fic, Misogyny, Sweet, single parent Booker
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-12-27
Updated: 2013-12-28
Packaged: 2018-01-06 08:05:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,794
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1104435
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Howland/pseuds/Howland
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Booker got lucky and wound up with something most men can only dream of: a second chance.    </p><p>Snapshots of DeWitt's life as he does right by Anna this time around.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. six months

**Author's Note:**

> This is for all of you who played the game a second and third and fifteenth time muttering all the while 'Booker, just hug your daughter, damnit.'

Booker feels sometimes that he was born afraid, that he came out of the womb already screaming for mercy from a world that didn’t care and wouldn’t listen. 

He was afraid of his father, of the man’s drink and hungry fists. He was afraid of his teachers and their damnation and their switches. He was afraid of his captain and all his sneering. He was afraid of the Indians. He was afraid of bullets.

He learned early on to hide away. He hid under the bed as his father raged around their one, rented room. He hid behind the school house with a stolen cigarette. He hid in his tent with a bottle of whiskey. He hid behind rocks and trees, hid with his bush knife between slaughtering women and children, hid behind a cover of violence and bloodshed he built up to cower behind, facades of fury to obscure him. 

He _knows_ fear. He knows the slick, acrid flavor of it, the bile that rises in the throat and the itch in your hands to cover your own mouth to stop yourself from screaming. 

He wasn’t even nineteen before he’d become convinced that there was nothing new left for him to be afraid of. He had witnessed the cruelty of man at its basest depths and though it would always scare him it could no longer surprise him. He knew the report of gunfire and the scream of a canon ball. He knew the sound of a woman crying out in agony before the end. 

Somehow though, none of it could compare to jerking awake, alone, in a dingy office he never expected to see again, the dull burn of river water still chasing his breath. His eyes were wide, his heart racing, hands shaking as he shoved his chair away from his desk. 

He called out for her, not the name that bastard gave her but the name her mother did, her real name. He called out for Anna, knocking papers and old bottles off his desk as he stumbled by, reaching wildly for the door. They rolled about and clinked together on the floor.

“Anna!” He gets a hold of the handle and hangs on with a death grip, his eyes shunting closed against the nauseous wave of anxious terror which rolls over him. 

A fear of possibility. 

Cool metal warms under his grip and his wrist twists without his conscious effort, the latch disengaging with a click, the door falling forward under his weight. 

His heart is in his throat and it’s hard to swallow, his chest aching. His clothes feel wet still, cloying, but he glances down and he’s dry as a bone, the river years behind him and long forgotten.

“Anna?” He murmurs the name, afraid to wake whatever might be inside. 

It’s warmer in here than it is the office proper. It’s the only room Booker’s done any improvements too, felt linings stuffed in the niches around the window frame to block the drafts. 

The cradle is simple but sturdy, something Mrs. Dewitt had found in a church basement charity give away, the sort of gathering Booker couldn’t stand but his wife had made do on. Out of everything she owned, as her belly had swelled with child, she had looked on that cradle with the most pride. 

“Anna?” His voice cracks on the word and he can’t quite finish it. He shoulders quake slightly. 

He doesn’t understand what’s happening. He’s never been book-smart and even though he gets that he’s somehow both Comstock and Dewitt, he doesn’t really _get it_. He’s not religious, but he grew up with Jesus-folk and he knows a thing or two about the bible. He can’t- he can’t get how God would let something like that happen, how any being that powerful could let that much chaos exist. 

How could God stand it?

Booker almost stops before he gets close enough to peer down into the crib, but his feet shuffle against the furious thudding of his heart, his body shifting forward without his input, his neck craning to peer over the edge. He’s barely breathing, eyes wide, the sound of her name on the tip of his tongue.

There she is. 

She looks like her mother. 

Booker’s knees give out and he’s so exhausted, he leans forward to wrap his hands around the bars of the crib and he chokes on a couple of gasping sobs. 

He’s known fear all his life, but when he drags himself to his feet again to lean heavily on the side of the crib and reach out to touch her dark hair with unsteady hands, he feels a surge of relief, the likes of which he’s never experienced before. 

She’s warm when he gets his hands on her, her eyes sliding open and they’re big and brown and beautiful and so familiar his heart breaks open and pours out such raw joy as he gazes down upon her. She gurgles low and frowns at him, kicking her legs against the half-hearted job of swaddling he must have left on her. 

Looking down at her frowns all he can do is smile and swipe harshly at his eyes. When his right hand swings into his line of sight he pauses to look at the back of it, dirty but unmarked as it hasn’t been for nearly twenty years. 

He laughs and looks up at the ceiling, with it’s molding corners and cob webs and he thanks God or Comstock or whatever because this is a better chance than he ever had. 

She is his one good thing, and he has a chance to take care of her anew. 

“Hey, sugar.” He murmurs, wiping his nose on his shirt sleeve, noticing how strongly he reeks of alcohol and how sour his clothes are. He feels gritty and unkempt but as he reaches out to pick up his daughter, wrapping gun-calloused hands around her and bring her close to his chest, she doesn’t seem to mind. 

Her frown lessens as she gets close and she rubs her cheek against his shirt, eyes sliding shut, oblivious to what has happened, will happen, is happening. Forget time and tears and constants and variables, right now she’s just a baby, and he’s just a twenty year old kid with a whole lot of responsibility that this time he’s ready for. 

He was scared when this first happened. He can remember holding the new born like he was afraid it would bite him, his heart hurting for his dead wife and his stomach tight at the thought of how in the hell he was supposed to make do on his own, but now it doesn’t seem so much like it matters. 

Raising his head he looks out through the dirty nursery window and over the roof of the building across the way, watching the gray clouds roll over each other, a barrier between the earth and the sky. He swallows hard, his feet carrying him backwards until he hits the wall with a dull thud and slides down until he’s slouched on the floor, knees bent to hold Anna all the closer. 

This is his second chance. He knows he should be afraid, but for once in his life, the fear has been washed away, eclipsed by the hope which burns in his heart.


	2. three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Booker doesn't get women but he gets Anna some dresses anyways.

Molly had had friends when she’d been alive, church women who’d cooed with her over her expanding figure and invited her and him over when the Pinkertons were in low demand and money was short. 

Booker had never liked them. They always looked at him like they expected things out of him and but he didn’t know what those things were.

A few of them had tried to come by just after Mrs. Dewitt had died, bringing loaves of bread and pots of stew and children’s clothes and powdered milk and offering to help out with the baby, but he’d chased them all out pretty quick. His patience was short with most people, but women especially didn’t wear well on his nerves.

He’s never been able to do right by women, he’s learned that well enough about himself over the years, and he doesn’t understand them enough to try and be better. As he stands in the dim church basement looking through piles of donated children’s clothes he frowns and wonders why he can’t just put his little girl in pants and a jacket and call it a day. It’s not like skirts are gonna do her any good. She’s nearly four, what’s she need to look all dolled up for?

At his knee Anna tugs on his pants for his attention and he lowers the grey wool trousers he’d been eyeing critically to look down at her. “Yeah?” 

Her lips twitch in that little way she only does for him. Booker wonders sometimes if she finds him ridiculous. He finds himself ridiculous. 

“I don’t want those.” She says quietly but clearly. She never had much of a baby lisp, learning her words carefully and storing more vocabulary away in her head than any three year old had a right to do. Booker was pretty sure she was brilliant- as brilliant as Elizabeth had been at least. 

With a sigh he tossed the trousers back onto the pile and crouched down next to her, placing a big hand on her little back just to hold her steady. 

“What _do_ you want?” He murmurs back, studying her face as she turns away from him and eyes the pile of hand me downs critically. 

After a moment she reaches out and taps a corner of fabric peeking out about midway down the pile. Booker cocks his head, not even sure what the garment is, but he reaches out to tug on the slip of blue cloth anyways. 

“This one?” He turns his eyes back to her, watching how carefully she evaluates the article as it’s revealed. 

It turns out it’s a dress, a blue one. Booker thinks it will be far too big on her, but maybe she’ll grow into it. 

It has ruffles over the breast, not so many as to make it ridiculous, but enough that it’s very, well, womanly. 

With an effort he manages to keep himself from grimacing. 

“Do you like it?” He asks quietly, taking his hand off her back so he can hold it at arm’s length, flicking his wrists once to try and knock some of the wrinkles out of it. 

As the fabric hangs in his grasp he breathes sharply for a moment, something about the colour or the cut of it being too familiar for his liking. 

He glances back to his little girl, her dark hair trimmed to her shoulders in as neat a cut as he can muster and he hopes she won’t smile. 

But she does smile. Slow and genuine and she turns her eyes to him with a nod. 

“Yes, papa.” She murmurs. “I like it.”

Not much he can do after that. If she likes blue, she likes blue. He sighs and frees up a hand so he can pat her on the shoulder. “Alright, I think it’ll be a bit big on you.” He offers up the token protest but she keeps smiling.

“I’ll grow.”

He can’t argue with that so he eyes the dress carefully, trying not to look too clueless as he wonders about its quality. It can’t be too different from a man’s shirt, can it? It seems sturdy enough. All the buttons are there at least. 

He folds it in half and drapes it over his arm after a bit, and catches Anna watching the way he handles the dress very carefully. “You wanna hold it?” He asks after a moment and immediately she nods, reaching out to take the new dress with reverence. 

“Thank you, Papa.” She says, solemnly, holding the folded garment up so there’s no chance for it to touch the floor. He can’t help but chuckle as he raises himself up out of his crouch and turns back to the pile of clothes. 

She’ll look good in it at least, he knows that much. She does look very pretty in blue. 

He picks up the trousers again, still thinking they’ll be her size but when he looks back down at her she has her face tilted slightly and her eyebrows drawn together in such away that he almost laughs. She looks much older than she has any right to, but it’s so familiar a gesture and she so clearly finds him a fool he can’t help himself. It’s funny. 

He throws the trousers back for the last time with a defeated sigh. “Let’s get you one more dress, okay?”

When she gives him a nod of agreement he starts pouring over the options in earnest, pulling out anything that he thinks will fit her. A couple of gray dresses and a black mourning dress get tossed out almost immediately, and he says no to another blue one even though Anna looks at it fondly. It comes down to a dark green dress with a yellow apron and a burgundy one with cream stripes. Both have seen better days but they’ll still have plenty of wear, especially after Booker replaces a button on the green one. He’s not much of a seamstress but there was no way he was getting out of the army without learning a thing or two with a needle. 

It takes a bit of debate but in the end Anna nods at the burgundy one and Booker tosses the other dress back onto the pile with a private sigh of relief. 

“Alright, are we good?” He asks her and she tucks her blue dress under her arm so she can reach up and take the hand which isn’t holding the other dress.   “Good.” She says and she smiles.

He smiles back. “Good.”

They make their way to the exit to show the lady at the door their selections. They’re not really supposed to take two dresses she says but Booker gives her a look and Anna clutches her new clothes to her chest with such big eyes that the old marm doesn’t have the heart to say no. 

Booker has a canvas satchel slung over his shoulder that he folds both the garments in after the lady gives them her approval. She asks them if they need stockings and underthings too, and Booker furrows his brow like he’s never heard such a ludicrous question but he supposes they do. Molly’s friends had given him plenty of stockings and such to start out Anna’s life, but she is growing and he supposes she’ll need more. The lady smiles and tells them to wait a moment, wandering off for a few minutes before returning with new underclothes and three pairs of lightly used stockings in hand, two of cotton and a warmer set made of wool. It’s warm days yet but winter is coming. 

Booker is glad that Anna can say thank you and be charming because all he can really manage is a nod of his head and a gruff ‘much obliged’ before he’s hustling his daughter out the door. 

They’re almost off the church property when he hears someone call his name behind him and it’s all he can do to keep from growling. He tightens his grip on Anna’s hand for a moment before he turns them both to face the plump elderly woman bustling towards them. Her pink skirt is voluminous and old fashioned, and her hat is far to big for a woman of her stature, but she clutches it to her head as she hurries along all the same. 

“Mr. Dewitt!” She trills, catching up to them with a huff. “What a surprise, I haven’t seen you in, oh, good heavens, it’s been years!”

“Ma’am.” Booker replies, nodding his head politely. He can’t remember her name for the life of him but the pitch of her voice is familiarly shrill. 

Her cheeks dimple when she smiles. With a pleased huff she adjusts her hat atop her pile of gray hair and turns her attention to the three year old at Booker’s side who’s clutching his hand very tight. 

“My goodness!” She exclaims. “Bless my soul, this must be little Anna!”

“Yes Ma’am.” Booker confirms because it’s useless to deny it. The woman shifts her weight awkwardly and Booker looks on in confusion until she manages to bend her knee and get down on Anna’s level. The little girl has gone very stiff at Booker’s side and he wants to pull her away but he doesn’t want to make an enemy out of someone on whose charitable services he is relying so he squeezes Anna’s hand back and tries to relax as much as he can, hoping she’ll relax a bit too.

The old woman is quiet for a long moment, studying Anna’s face. “My goodness,” she murmurs, “you are such a pretty girl Anna. You look just like your mother.”

Booker’s own instinct is to stiffen in reaction, so he doesn’t notice for a moment that Anna’s grip has actually relaxed, and her lips have spread out in a shy little smile. He’s so shocked he can’t stay ruffled for long, his eyes widening as he watches his child interact with the woman. 

“Well,” The old lady continues. “I’m Mrs. Merriweather. I’m an old friend of your mother’s. We used to do charity events together! Are you here to help us?”

Anna’s smile fades a little bit and she shakes her head a bit. 

Booker’s carefully opitimistic mood turns to irritation and he frowns at the woman. “We’re partaking.” He mutters sharply, ready for the woman to back track, but Mrs. Merriweather just blinks for a moment before nodding her head to herself.

“Well I am glad of it. I know we have some lovely dresses so I hope you got something nice. Did you find something you liked?”

For a second Booker thinks Anna will be too overwhelmed to react but after a moment the little girl nods and tugs on the satchel, her face turned up to Booker’s pleadingly. 

“You want to show her?”

Anna nods, and Booker unbuttons the flap of the bag obligingly so she can peer inside and reach in for her new clothes. She pulls out the blue dress carefully, holding it up off the ground and out so Mrs. Merriweather can look at it. 

The old lady’s smile multiplies and she reaches out to touch the ruffles fondly. “Well bless my heart I think this dress was little Gertrude’s once. She’s nearly a lady now so she has no use for it and Mrs. Compton had no more children, but, well, it still looks like it’s got plenty of use in it! My dear, you will look so pretty in it, I am so happy for you!”

She reaches out and pinches Anna’s cheek gently and Booker can remember balking at such things as a child, ready to bite off any stray fingers that wandered too close to his person, but Anna, god bless her, the girl actually _giggles_ and turns away shyly to put her dress away again. 

The old woman shifts back on her heels as if to straighten and Booker shoots a hand out awkwardly. “Let me help.” He grunts out, almost surprised when the woman takes his hand gratefully and heaves herself to her feet. 

“Oh, what a gentleman.” She exclaims, laughing at herself. She pats at his hand with her free one before he lets go, then reaches up to adjust her hat again. 

“Well it was good to meet you my dear, I haven’t seen you since you were just a babe in arms, and you, Mr. Dewitt, now that I’ve seen you again, don’t you dare let it be years until the next meeting! I would chat more now but I’m already late and the ladies will be expecting me. You should come to church this Sunday, dear, you have a very lovely voice if I do remember.”

Booker can’t help himself as his head tilts back in resistance. “We’ll see.” He manages to mutter, reeling himself in and tilting his head forward again in an acknowledging nod. “Ma’am.” He manages to scrape the word in before he forgets and Mrs. Merriweather nods back obligingly before casting them a little wave and making her way back towards the church. 

“She’s nice.” Anna declares almost the moment the woman was out of earshot. Booker takes her hand again with a shake of his head. 

“I suppose.” He mutters, turning them towards the flophouse they called home. 

As soon as she started walking Booker had begun to train himself to keep his steps shallower and slower to let her keep up, but when he gets flustered he still has to consciously reign himself in. For a moment she’s scampering to stay at his side until he draws up short, matching her pace as well he can. 

Anna never seems to mind, following wherever he may lead. “She said I was pretty in a nice way.” She murmurs as they make their way past a pair of sleepy saloons, nearly empty in this quiet part of the day.

Booker’s lips spasm in a smile and he squeezes her little fingers. “You are pretty.” He confirms and he doesn’t have to look at her to know she is smiling. 

“I still think the trousers would have been a good idea, though.” He adds under his breath.

At his side Anna laughs and tugs on his arm. “Papa!” She scolds. 

He glances down at her with a frown but she can tell he’s faking. She giggles, her round face upturned to meet his gaze. 

“I don’t understand girls.” He mutters before he can help himself but Anna just laughs again. 

“You’re okay.” She offers up and he chuckles at that. It’s higher praise than he’d expected, and more than he’s managed for most of his life. 

“Thanks, sweet heart.” He murmurs, before shifting down to lift her up and carry her over a patch of badly broken concrete. She rests her cheek against his shoulder and stays in his arms all the rest of the way home.


	3. Seven

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Booker's still not good with women but he tries to gets Anna a good Christmas present anyway.

On Christmas Eve he hands her a small leather bundle. He didn’t have wrapping paper and didn’t really know where to get any but he’d managed to find himself some scrap green fabric from a dumpster outside a florist and he’d cut strips of it to tie in a bow. 

Anna seems content enough and smiles at him as he passes over the gift. 

They’re sitting in the pair of chairs he keeps angled towards the stove set against the wall of their humble abode. It’s not the same office as before - Booker couldn’t stand staying in that place any longer than he had to - but that didn’t mean he’d upgraded. It was the same, dingy sort of one-and-a-half room set up. Usually he gave Anna the half room to herself and he slept on a cot in the office, but it was winter now and this building wasn’t insulated worth a damn so they slept next to each other with their mattresses tugged to the floor in front of the stove. 

During the day, that same prime real estate within the stove’s meagre circle of warmth is occupied by a couple beat up wooden arm chairs which he managed to fix up enough to make them stable. He’d paid for their worth in firewood when the hotel down the street was tossing them, and after adding in the cost of a few nails and couple patches for the upholstery he thinks he did pretty good. 

Anna’s wearing a blue dress. She’s always wearing blue. This one is dark navy wool, and she has a worn white blanket tugged over her shoulders as well, her stocking-clad feet swinging a bit as she studies the package in her hands. 

He has books for her in the morning. They’re from the library so she can’t keep them forever, but he’d managed to bug the librarian into sending off to some other institution across town so he could get some texts Anna hadn’t nosed through yet. She’s seven and likes to read about living things, about the world, and the small stack of atlases and field guides to various flora and fauna he has secreted away in his desk should hopefully please her. 

Tonight, though, he wants to give her this. It’s hers to keep forever and it took him a couple months of saving what he could out of his meager earnings as a private investigator and sometimes bouncer to afford it. 

He hopes she likes it. It’s not like she expressed any interest in it, but she’d been so good at it before. 

“Go on, open it.” He encourages when she spends too long just fiddling with the bow. She looks at him, fond and exasperated and Booker can’t help but smile back. Even with his fingers gripping tight at the arms of his chair, anxious for her reaction. 

The bow unties smoothly and she drops the fabric to the floor in silence. With care she starts to unroll the bundle, revealing several pockets with various silver implements glinting out of their beds. Her small hands reach out to touch them gently. 

She’s quiet so long that Booker can’t really stand it anymore and he blurts out “They’re lockpicks.” before he can help himself. Anna picks her head up and graces him with a smile. 

“I know papa.” She says. “Thank you. I like them, a lot.”

He studies her face for a long moment, hoping she means it, before he starts patting at his vest awkwardly until he finds the heavy lump of metal he was looking for and tugs it out of his pocket. 

“Here.” He says, handing it over. “I didn’t know how to wrap it so I just- It’s a practice lock, it hasn’t got a back so you can see what you’re doing.”

The lock picks were pretty new but the practice lock had seen better days. He’d done his best to polish it up some but it’s still dented and dirty from its time in the pawn shop. Anna doesn’t seem to mind. She studies it with the same intensity she does anything else, like she has a greater purpose for everything she does but she’s not going to tell you about it. 

She’s different, his Anna. She’s not really what he remembers. It’s okay though. She seems happy most the time, and that’s what he wants. 

“Why lock picks?” She asks after a moment, honestly curious and Booker can’t help but shrug, embarrassed. 

“Dunno. Thought you might like to learn. I thought you’d be good at it.”

She smiles back and slips out of her chair, setting her present down before taking the few steps to be at his knee and clambering up into the complaining piece of furniture and settling in his lap. He leans back until she’s still then he wraps his arms around her and tucks her head under his chin, rubbing her forearm with his thumb gently as he stares at the orange glow of the coal fire.

“Thank you papa.” She says again. “I really like them. I hadn’t thought about them, but I think I will really like to learn.”

“Good, I’m glad.” He says, a bit gruff. It’s not really a nice hobby to encourage, but at least it’s a skill he knows she can fall back on. She’s smart and she does well in school but with his job and success in life (or lack there of) he wants her to be ready for the fall, even if he’s still hoping she’ll make it to the top. 

He has to loosen his hold for a moment when she wiggles to make some space between them, but it’s just enough so she can pull the blanket off her shoulders and tug it around the two of them. Booker says thank you under his breath and stretches his bare feet out in front of him, soaking in what warmth the stove can provide. 

“Merry Christmas.” Anna murmurs, half asleep and Booker glances out the window to where he can see in the lamplight that snow has just begun falling. Maybe they’ll go throw some snowballs tomorrow. Anna’s aim is getting better but it’s not where he wants it to be. 

“Merry Christmas, darling.” He whispers back. He’ll drag the mattresses out in a bit, but for now he just rests tired bones and enjoys the weight of Anna in his arms.


End file.
